1

Power Your Mobile

Applications via the Cloud

Romin IraniXoriant

2

Agenda

Cloud Computing Google App Engine Writing Mobile Applications –

Powered by the Cloud

3

What is Cloud Computing?

• An application that you can use• A computer that you can use• A network peripheral that you can

use• Storage

• Applications like Gmail, SalesForce, etc

4

What is the ‘Computing’ part?

Servers

Networks

Applications

Storage

Services

5

Define Cloud Computing?

• Cloud computing is a pay-per-use model for enabling available, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

6

5-4-3 Formula

Cloud Computing comprises of

• 5 key characteristics– On Demand Self Service, Ubiquitous Network Access,

Location Independent Resource Pooling, Elasticity & Pay Per Use

• 3 delivery models– SaaS, PaaS, IaaS

• 4 deployment models– Public, Private, Hybrid & Community

7

Another view!

8

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS - Summary

IaaS PaaS SaaSI will give you a virtual machine

in the cloud which you can

provision any time you want

I will give you a software platform which you can use to build and deploy application in the cloud

I will provide you with ready to use applications

You pay for what you use You pay based on usage You just need to log in and use

You can scale it up or down whenever you wish

You do not need to pay for any additional software

You not need to buy anything

You continue to use the same set of software

You have no administrative hassles

You pay only for what you use

9

Who are the providers?

• Amazon [IaaS]

• SalesForce [SaaS, PaaS]

• Google [SaaS, PaaS]

• Microsoft [SaaS, PaaS]

• Zoho [SaaS]

• And many more …

10

Amazon – Web Services (IaaS)• Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)– Rent computing resources by the hour– Basic unit of accounting = instance-hour– Additional costs for bandwidth

• Simple Storage Service (S3)– Persistent storage– Charge by the GB/month– Additional costs for bandwidth

• Several Other services : Virtual Private Cloud, etc

11

For the Developer - PaaS

• Java (Google App Engine)

• .NET (Azure)

• Python (Google App Engine)

• PHP (Rackspace)

• Ruby (Heroku)

• Other Platforms (Force.com, etc)

12

Advantages• Increase the speed at which application

can be deployed.• Organizations can respond to change

much faster.• IT Management is taken care of and you

focus on the application.• By paying only for what you use - it shifts

the burden of planning for something that you are not very sure of.

• IT is being delivered as a service via APIs.

13

Disadvantages• Traditional IT methods are not going to work

• Architectural decisions are in the hands of the developers

• Programming models/APIs need to be learnt (PaaS)

• Coding needs to be done so as to get maximum value for what you are paying

• Cloud Interoperability is suspect at this point in time

• Cloud standards/tools are still evolving

• Still need to separate out the hype from the substance

14

PaaS Walkthrough

• Google App Engine

15

Google App Engine

• It is a PaaS, been around for 2.5 years

• It provides a software stack to develop web applications

• Python and Java

• Downloadable SDK & Tools

– Eclipse Plugin, Local Server, Local Dashboard

• Specialized Services

• Scalable, Generous Free Quota … more.

16

Google App Engine - Services

17

App Engine Architecture

17

Python / JavaVM

process

stdlib

app

memcachedatastore

Mail

urlfetch

Services R/O FSreq/resp

Images

XMPP

Cron Jobs

Task Queue

Blob Store

User Service

18

Advantages• Development without worrying about the

deployment infrastructure• Single development environment – end to end

[Eclipse based tools]• Instant deployment, cloud scalability [Eclipse based

tools]• Excellent Monitoring Tools• Billing : Pay as you use. Generous free quotas that

get you started immediately• In short: An affordable, efficient and scalable

environment for your web applications.

19

Google App Engine - Quotas

• ~5M pageviews/month

• 6.5 CPU hrs/day

• 1 GB storage

• 650K URL Fetch calls/day

• 2,000 recipients emailed

• 1 GB/day bandwidth

• 100,000 tasks enqueued

• 650K XMPP messages/day

20

How to use Google App engine

• Download Java 6

• Download Eclipse and Google plug in

• Register a user account in Google

• Register an application

• Create an application (Java) and deploy the application

• Your app is ready !!

• Monitor Usage & (Modify-Test-Deploy)

21

Sample Application

• Reminder Service

–Monthly Reminders

– Example : FEB – Mom/Dad Anniversary, JUN – Wife Birthday, JULY – Pay Tax .

– Simple REST like API to fetch details

22

Lets get started!!

Download Java 6

Download Eclipse and Google plug in

Register a user account in Google

Register an application

Create an application (Java) and deploy the application

Your app is ready !!

Monitor Usage & (Modify-Test-Deploy)

23

Mobile Applications - Development• Various Mobile OS

• Plenty of Tools / IDEs

• Possible to write many more apps – all served by a Service Layer powered by the Cloud

• Native or Web Mobile Applications

24

Mobile Applications

25

Web Mobile Applications

26

• On the Server side, a 2-step procedure is used to deliver the content.

– Identify the Device Capabilities and thereby its group• Use of WURFL Device Database

– Server side adaption to deliver the content accordingly

Thin Client Architecture – Key Points

27

WURFL

• http://wurfl.sourceforge.net, spearheaded by Luca Passani

• WURFL = Wireless Universal Resource File

• XML Configuration File

• Information about capabilities and features of many mobile devices

28

Native Mobile Development – (Thick Client)

29

• Build a common REST layer that will expose functionality over XML/HTTP

• The REST functionality will contain all methods required i.e. login, get account summary, report data, payment transactions

• This common REST layer will be used by all Thick Client applications and Thin Clients

• Thick client applications will use the features available on the respective handsets.

Thick Client Architecture – Key Points

30

Key to bringing it all together

• Cloud Application -> Service Enablement

• Glue : HTTP, REST , JSON/XML

• One Service layer -> Multiple Mobile Applications (various platforms)

31

Demos

• Cloud application and Service Layer

• Android Native application

• Web Mobile application

• WURFL Integration for Device detection

– http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/help_doc.php

32

References

Google App Engine: http://appengine.google.com/

Google App Engine Experimentshttp://gaejexperiments.wordpress.com

WURFLhttp://wurfl.sourceforge.net/

33

Thank You

Q & A

romin.k.irani@

gmail.com

iRomin